Three Oxford High School students suspected of setting fire to a construction bus parked at the middle school and breaking into three school buses and stealing radio equipment, all on the night of Wednesday Jan. 15, are being investigated by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department.
Following the alleged incidents, the three students fled across the Ambassador Bridge to Canada, where one of them, Nathaniel Gene Bennett, 18, was arrested by Canadian customs officials for violating Canada’s Customs Act. He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced Monday to eight days in jail.
Although no criminal charges have been filed in Oakland County, sheriff’s investigators said Bennett and his two friends, a 16-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl, are the main suspects in the arson of the 1974 GMC school bus used to store construction tools and equipment by its owner, the Novi-based Jack D. Anglin Co.
According to Assistant Superintendent Ron Franey, the construction company was hired by the school district to do “site work,” such as moving and leveling dirt and installing storm water sewers, as part of the middle school’s expansion and conversion into the future high school.
Sheriff’s investigators said the three teenagers are also the main suspects in the apparent theft of two Motorola radios used for communication from three school buses parked in the district’s bus storage area off Lakeville Road, near the high school and Lakeville Elementary.
According to the sheriff’s report, local attorney and Oxford resident Lee Knauf, 41, was traveling northbound on N. Oxford Rd. at about 10:15 p.m. when he saw the bus fire in the middle school’s south parking lot and noticed a car driving away at a fast rate of speed toward the lot’s exit.
The speeding car, a 1993 Chevy Corsica owned and driven by the 16-year-old male suspect, appeared suspicious to Knauf so he pulled in the parking lot and used his vehicle to block the exit.
When Knauf asked the teens what was going on, they said they too had noticed the fire and were on their way to notify the police because they didn’t have a cell phone on them.
Knauf told the teens he had a cell phone and asked them to wait there while he called 9-1-1 for help.
The teens agreed and parked their car up on the sidewalk to get as far away from the bus as possible in case it exploded.
Knauf told this reporter he’s glad the teens decided to listen to him and wait there.
“I wasn’t going to chase them or fight them,” he said. “I’m not a hero. Don’t try to put an ‘S’ on my chest.”
Fire Chief Jack LeRoy said his department got the emergency call at 10:23 p.m. and had the fire under control at 10:36 p.m.
He said it appears the fire started inside the passenger compartment and remained confined to the interior of the bus. The chief estimated $2,000 worth of damage to the bus and $500 for contents.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Fire Investigation Unit is currently investigating the blaze.
Sgt. Robert Gohl of the Fire Investigation Unit confirmed the fire was arson and said the accelerant used has been determined, but he can’t make that information public because it’s part of an on-going criminal investigation.
“All I can say is that the bus was intentionally set on fire,” Gohl said.
The sheriff’s report stated that a “plastic cap to a (road) flare” was found on the ground near the bus door.
The 16-year-old driver, the son of an Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputy, told police he and his friends were heading home southbound on N. Oxford Rd. when they saw the fire, pulled into the lot to see what was going on and attempted to leave the lot to notify the police because they didn’t have a cell phone.
The 16-year-old told deputies he “had no idea how the fire started and saw no other vehicles leave the area.”
According to the sheriff’s report, Bennett had a fully functioning cell phone on his person.
Bennett told police he didn’t use this cell phone to notify emergency personnel of the fire because his battery was low. When the deputy checked the phone, it’s battery was three-quarters charged.
Bennett then told police he didn’t have any minutes left on the phone. In response, the deputy used the phone to place a 9-1-1 test call which went through to the dispatch center.
Sheriff’s deputies searched the 16-year-old’s vehicle and found two Motorola radios, one of which they were unable to locate the serial number for, but no evidence of any accelerants that might have been used to cause the fire.
The 16-year-old told police someone from the other school he attends, Oakland Schools Technical Campus in Pontiac, gave him the radios. However, he said he couldn’t remember the name of the individual who gave him the radios or where they came from.
Bennett told deputies he bought the radios from a pawn shop in Florida and said he had a receipt at home.
The deputies on the scene determined the radio with the serial number had not been reported stolen, but confiscated both radios because of the discrepancy in the two youths’ stories.
According to Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputy and Oxford Schools Liaison Officer Ken Alderman, the school district’s bus garage was contacted Thursday morning and it was determined that three buses had been broken into the night before.
One complete Motorola radio was taken from one, the radio without the microphone was taken from another and just the microphone was taken from a third bus, Alderman said.
According to the suspects’ statements to deputies, they spent most of the evening, since between 7 and 7:30 p.m., driving around, making a few stops at the 15-year-old girl’s house, the Oxford Meijer and to pickup and drop-off a friend, whom Bennett claims drove around with them for 30 minutes.
Alderman said the three suspects were released last Wednesday night because at the time they were considered witnesses, not suspects, since no evidence of fire accelerants was found in the vehicle and the radios had not been reported stolen.
However, by about 2 a.m. Thursday morning, the teens had not returned home, so the parents of the 16-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl (a village resident in Oxford Lakes) reported them as missing and possible runaways to the Oxford Village Police, according to Police Chief Mike Neymanowski.
The three suspects were apprehended at about 5 a.m Thursday at the Detroit-Windsor border by Canadian customs officials. Neymanowski said the girl was apparently hiding under a blanket in the car because she had no identification on her.
Neymanowski said the minors were released to the custody of their parents, while Bennett, who was the driver, was arrested and charged with three counts of violating Canada’s Customs Act ? 1) failure to report a passenger to Customs; 2) making or attempting to make false statements to Customs; and 3) attempting to evade compliance with the Customs Act by failing to truthfully answer questions.
The chief said Bennett pleaded guilty to all the charges and was sentenced to eight days in jail by an Ontario Court of Justice on Monday. Bennett was deported back to the U.S. Monday evening because the four days he’d already spent in Canadian custody was credited as time served for the eight-day sentence.
Alderman said he’s in the process of interviewing the suspects.